The Wave Offering

Sometimes our family does “devotions” at night after dinner which consists of reading a part in the Bible and having some discussion.  We were reading from the Old Testament in a part that some might think is a little boring when we came across a passage about a certain tribe of Israel being appointed as priests.  This tribe, the Levites, would amount to tens of thousands of people and the Bible records that the rest of the people of Israel had to place their hands on this tribe.  We started to consider the logistics of about 500,000 men laying hands on another 50,000 men.  A simple explanation is that this must have been the first mass crowd surfing event.  Those Levites just launched themselves onto the people of Israel.  I can just imagine Aaron orchestrating a huge mexican wave  with Levites crowd surfing on top – very cool.  Of course,  this has biblical support when you go back and read the Bible as it says that the people of Israel offered the tribe of Levi as a “wave offering”.  (Numbers 8)

Xakira is going well –sleeping, sucking, burping, pooping.  Cynthia does most of the work in this department.  Xakira is just starting to smile – if you use your imagination.  Bethany is going great helping the kids with school.  We are very thankful for Lynelle (Cynthia’s mother) coming and not only assisting with the birth but just generally helping around the house and caring for the Xakira, gardening and even helping fix machines in the sewing room.

 

Last week we had a few Americans stay with us as the team helped build the walls of the Nazarene church hall.  This building has been in the planning stage for around 2 years so its great to finally see some real action.  The 10m x 20m floor space is ready for a roof now and the American team is discussing going home to raise the funds to help this become a reality.  This is very encouraging for the local church folks here.

Out at Hera, John has nearly finished the construction of a disability centre for Branca.  I had the pleasant opportunity to go and do some tiling with a couple of Timorese, Anen and Apoli.  It was great to teach them more of an Aussie technique for laying tiles in a bathroom.  Pray for John that God would help him get it all finished for the grand opening next week.

 

A salvo church in Australia has been inspired to raise funds for a 3 wheeled motor bike for the Nazarene church in Los Palos to use with their youth farm project and other ministries.  We hope to make the final payment on this tomorrow.  Of course, I’ll need to take this contraption for a few test runs.  More on this story later.

Jonny, the guy with the infection in his leg came back and he’s very happy with his treatment in Australia.  He was crippled during the crisis from a badly infected dog bite.  There is some discussion about him getting hip surgery to allow him to walk more easily and we are arranging x-rays to go back to oz for inspection by a specialist.

I feel like this and lots of other cool stuff we do here is only possible by the love, prayers and support we receive from folks in Australia (and other countries).  In some way its like you put your hands up to allow us to do the surfing – thanks for the wave.

A local fisherman on our beach making the most of the muddy water.